/comp/ - Composition General

"Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries." - Richard Wagner

This fucking challenge Edition

previous thread: This differs from /prod/ in that it is more focused on the actual writing of music, not the production, and music theory. That is not to say /prod/'s electronic music is unwelcome, by all means, post here! But post with the intent on discussing composition. And remember, this is NOT /classical/. Any music, such as jazz, is acceptable

Post clyps and accompanying notation so we can accurately critique your composing from a theory perspective

THEORY

>Fux's Counterpoint
opus28.co.uk/Fux_Gradus.pdf

>Orchestration (Rimsky-Korsakov)
northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/77-Principles-of-Orchestration

>Teoria - Music Theory General Guides/Articles
teoria.com/index.php

>Arnold Schcoenberg's "Fundementals of Music Composition"
monoskop.org/images/d/da/Schoenberg_Arnold_Fundamentals_of_Musical_Composition_no_OCR.pdf

>Jazz harmony (from the course at Berklee)
davidvaldez.blogspot.com/2006/04/berklee-jazz-harmony-1-4.html

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

>Basic composing
youtube.com/watch?v=hWbH1bhQZSw

>Free Notation Software
musescore.org/

IMPROVISATION

>Fake books for jazz and blues soloing
drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzW9o5O35hQzMzA0ZmI0MWEtZGFmNi00OTQ0LWI2MjMtOWUyNzgyNmUzNzNm&usp=drive_web&ddrp=1&hl=en#

STUFF /COMP/ DOES

>the /comp/ YouTube channel
youtube.com/channel/UCqUEaKts92UIstFjrz9BfcA

>the /comp/ challenge
[email protected]

>/comp/ Georgian Modes Explanation by yodAnon
dropbox.com/s/v26nd8bepv74d8s/Gregorian Modes v1.5.pdf?dl=0

>/comp/ Google Drive folder
drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/0B8L6-YOBO_NIOXk1OXRsTDlWMHc

Other resources (full of lessons and books): pastebin.com/EjYVcErt

Other urls found in this thread:

strawpoll.me/10910063
archive.rebeccablacktech.com/mu/
clyp.it/4at3alzl
musescore.com/user/277281/scores/2464701
drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzW9o5O35hQzMzA0ZmI0MWEtZGFmNi00OTQ0LWI2MjMtOWUyNzgyNmUzNzNm&usp=drive_web&ddrp=1&hl=en#
clyp.it/cfawacox
clyp.it/eqh3horg
clyp.it/cinvew3l
clyp.it/5v1wttuy
youtube.com/watch?v=DVclZvxING4
youtube.com/watch?v=Chlad74Yl3E
teoria.com/en/tutorials/forms/sonata/
youtube.com/watch?v=TeZAXupd2d0
clyp.it/3vyrvrs3
youtube.com/watch?v=zyF1cLA2Izw
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

repost
Honestly I was thinking of solo piano, which is pretty much the only thing I've heard things called sonatinas on. But that would work just as well if not better, though it too has its downsides, like going from a single instrument most here are likely to be familiar with to multiple instruments only a few here play.

I'm a bit worried about adding layers of complexity to what should be a simple exercise of an already difficult concept, so I'm not sure about specifying instrumentation, but

And I mean, if someone here can write for a symphony orchestra in a week I honestly want to see the result

Reposting the stanza warriors from last thread

what about doing a simple one next, solo instrument (no chords) and latent polyphony.

We need to start strawpolling for challenges

Right now we got:

Sonatina first movement (or exposition maybe?) - no instrument limit

solo instrument - latent polyphony

its just that I wanted to write a string quartet and seeing someone go thru it would be so nice since its hard to find that thing on youtube

I can understand tho if solo piano would be more inclined to everyone else's wishes

Feels like adding unnecessary complexity to some knowledge that can otherwise be applied to anything.

A simple piano sonatina would be nice for everyone I feel, it should help someone like you to write string quartets as well, but I feel that writing string quartets is more about counterpoint and harmony than form.

So is everyone good for a sonatina for challenge #5?

You can do just a fugue's exposition, but the defining feature of sonata form is the tonal contrast between the themes in the exposition that gets explored in the development and resolved in the recapitulation. In the Clementi I posted the total length of the music without repeats is just around 43 or so seconds.

Honestly I feel like a sonatina for string quartet and a sonatina for piano solo have an equal amount of pros and cons. Sonatinas for piano solo are far more common than for anything else, but you must take into consideration the hands and their widths, so hands must be close together or you have to go without a middle range. A string quartet is four truly independent parts, but the instruments have certain idioms and quirks that you'd be remiss not to study them. And not that it really matters but I can't imagine a string quartet (much less a symphony orchestra as someone mentioned last thread) getting together to play a minute and a half of music.

What if we had either one as choices? Or perhaps a limit of up to four performers of stringed instruments or piano? or I dunno

I kind of like this one to be honest (being a biased cellist and all). It seems we're going for my suggestion for challenge #5, but I'd definitely like to see this at some point.

how about a trio?
would that change things

>someone ruins the challenge by making it something really hard
every time

How do I finish a song? I'm just starting to learn about structure and all that but whenever I write anything it's just a little riff or diddy or whatever that sounds alright and I either can't think of anything else to go with it, it sounds too similar to the first bit I write, or it just sounds retarded as fuck

I'm in the same boat here friendo.

Sonatina form stream or riot.

Repeat that riff. Vary it slightly. Repeat the variation. Write the riff in a different key.

Also check Schoenberg's book for how to really vary a melody

thanks ill try it, and ill check that out too

this. if the challenge is to write a sonatina, just write a sonatina. no need to limit anything else, let someone write a sonatina for 3 vocalists if that's what they want

A sonatina seems to be the overwhelming choice

strawpoll.me/10910063

what is the premise of this challenge thing?
we all write a sonatina?

it has yet to be decided.

But what is a challenge in this thread?
can someone specify what that entails

oh. Well it just gives some instructions on a composition, then you go compose it. Like in our first challenge, we each composed something that modulated every 4 bars

i see
can I hear some of those pieces (from the last challenge)
also, is there a time limit?

no time limit unless specified. All previous challenge submissions can be found in the Drive folder in pasta

originally they were weekly challenges, now they seem to be just weekly-ish

also, don't mean to be rude, but, well, do your own legwork
archive.rebeccablacktech.com/mu/

not him, but
all those folders seem to be empty

Hey guys, just finished this track for a short film I'm scoring, hoping to get some thoughts/feedback/questions. It's for a sequence of about 45 seconds.

clyp.it/4at3alzl

It's for a scene in which a man, while recounting a dream, sees his brother's dead wife (who drowned) - just for context.

I don't know what to tell you, desu, because they're not empty for me. Is everyone else seeing them?

I am him and they're empty for me as well

I presume you meant "not him", because I don't remember posting this.

Where do you guys find proper jazz standards sheet music?

I need one for Oleo and Giant Steps.

I was referring to an earlier reply to you where someone said "im not him"
it was a bit of a call back
point is the folders are empty

err, when i hear the music i'm not thinking about dead drowned wives at all. To me it feels more like a sort of astronautic music, where you're just kind of floating into space not really sure of where you're going or if you'll ever return.

maybe you should try and sneak in some diminished chords once in a while in the bassline, just to convey some fear or dread?

Short piece for Piano Trio I just finished

musescore.com/user/277281/scores/2464701

>Fake books for jazz and blues soloing
drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzW9o5O35hQzMzA0ZmI0MWEtZGFmNi00OTQ0LWI2MjMtOWUyNzgyNmUzNzNm&usp=drive_web&ddrp=1&hl=en#

>tfw my Sonatina sounds like shit so far
clyp.it/cfawacox

Please help me

haha, are you that unintentional video game music guy?

>haha, are you that unintentional video game music guy?
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK UFCK

bump for night

I mean, I sort of agree to a degree with the other user, but only insofar as it wouldn't match a scene he describes. I mean, saying it's a dream about a brother's drowned wife doesn't really say much about the scene, is it a dream of grief? Survivor guilt? Murderer guilt? Spooky haunted happenings? Lust? Divine revelation? What's going on here?

I will say this sounds quite poignant. Like if it were a dream replaying memories of the lady, and then she drowns in the end, the feeling there with the piano is just like "Oh...". But I'll also say that this wouldn't be suitable if the dream is very in-detail about her drowning and the mc trying and failing to save her (or something). I heavily disagree with the suggestion to sneak diminished chords in there, though, to be perfectly honest that would end up kind of cheap-sounding.

yo guys just finished the track of the day what do you think
all feedback appreciated
clyp.it/eqh3horg

this is pretty interesting. I would say that your quintuplet figure gets very tiring after a point. I don't want to hear it literally all the time in a very similar state. I think it really needs to be developed more

hhhahhhhahhhh i mean it sounds like you intentionally made it silly and if so you have succeeded and I like it. What are you going for if that's not the case?

Is it meant to sound constantly glitchy, because that makes it annoying to listen to all of it. The glitching and and other weird LFO shit seems to be a poor attempt at hiding the lack of cohesion in the other parts.

Kek, yeah this is really sounds like a retro "mickey mouse spooky castle stories" vidya.

cute sonatina baka

i'm cheating by posting a sonatina I did 4 months ago

clyp.it/cinvew3l

critiques please

I just wanted to try my hand at the Hungarian Minor scale. The little octave bloops at the end are kinda silly

How do I avoid sounding video game?

thank you friend

>How do I avoid sounding video game?
look at the melodies and voice leading of the masters. go to imslp.org and look at the scores of your favorite sonatas. Look at how composers use melody very carefully and deliberately, and very clearly state their ideas, without rushing.

Use less leaps and more step-wise motion.

A big mistake in starting out composers is to try to write really fast complex music. You should start slow or at least medium tempo. Fast pieces require mush more work, and require a certain finesse (that comes from experience) to pull off successfully.

Should I avoid syncopation too? I listen to a lot of jazz so could that be making the meme sound come out?

Syncopation is fine, I guess its a stylistic choice (as is step-wise vs. leaps)

I tend to keep syncopation to percussion parts, or to limit it to small parts of the piece, in order to accentuate them. Think of syncopation as a way to throw the listener off. If you want them to be constantly confused, never have notes on the beat, if you want them to understand what's going on, stick to accenting the main beats.

Maybe try writing something really simple rhythmically like in a Beethoven sonata slow movement. That way you can focus on a melody and the chords

your syncopation is a little goofy (like bar 5), but it's not really in a jazz style either. you just really must love video game music, user

I actually don't really like game music. I'm going to do everything I can to not write like this anymore. I'll write fugues for the next 5 years if it means nobody will ever say the same thing about my music again.

I was joking user. What kind of music do you really like? I think what you do need to do is some blatant imitation, writing fugues is a good idea.

>What kind of music do you really like?
20th century classical, medieval classical, psychadelic rock, jazz, foreign rock.

Mostly 20th century classical though. Prokofiev, Scriabin and Bartok are my favourites.

>prokofiev skryabin and bartok
lmao those guys are very hard to imitate. Skryabin is probably the easiest to get your head around. I would really recommend you to take a look at his smaller works like the preludes and basically try to copy exactly how they sound without copying any notes/motifs/distinc rhythms etc. Like his first prelude, try writing a piece with the same uninterrupted rhythm, and try to capture that same tonality and harmonic colour, but make sure your melody is totally different and try to use a very different accompaniment pattern.

You should also try copying the form, it's very short yet very compelling.

It's way harder to write unlike something, than to write like something else you admire

Anybody here who likes (electronic) pop music as much as classical?

I sometimes don't know on which genre to spend time composing. I am experimenting with mixture of both.

Fucked around and whipped up a sonatina just for fun:
clyp.it/5v1wttuy
Transitions could be smoother, but ok for a first draft of the 2 contrasting themes. Both ideas were generated by improvising.

I have dabbled in popular music. I really started out as an electronic producer, so always enjoy fooling with those elements.
Finding your own voice can take years, but you'll probably find you're always doing a variety of styles, it actually helps keep everything fresh. Ideas from one style will help you progress in another.

>all these sonatina WIPs so quickly
Here I thought people would have more difficulty with it. Am I the only who hasn't even started yet?

I don't even know how to start it when I don't know it's form nor any rules. /comp/ being racist again, fug you. I never did a single challenge.

The Form works, but that melodic line for the clarinet doesn't always make sense. The repeated eight c c c des es sound too mechanical. Why not a changing note like c bes c des es?
Also, some jumps at the end of phrases seem out of place.
The rest probably works, good idea going for a flat key for clarinet.

I'm in more of a math kind of mood this morning, so I've been fooling around with serialized rhythms, and so far really just with number sets in general (although oddly enough not with tone rows, since 0=12 kind of throws a wrench in the works). I realize this is /comp/ and not /theory/, and that not everyone here is as autistic as me, but I found it kind of cool and maybe someone else will.

So the basic idea behind inversion in tone rows is, all intervals above 0 are now intervals below 0. So if 0 is A, 3 (C) is inverted to 9 (F#). Mathematically you do this by subtracting every number in the set from 12. So for example,
>[0 2 5 6], A B D Eb/D#
>12-0 12-2 12-5 12-6
>[12(=0) 10 7 6], A G E D#/Eb
When serializing other things such as rhythm, inversion isn't as intuitive. There's no tonic you flip them all over. Mathematically, though, it's the exact same process, subtract each part of the set from a number.

But you can't just use 12 (at least not usually). The trick is to find a number to subtract each of the numbers of the set from so that the numbers of the inverted set add up to the same sum as the original set.

This is unrelated enough as it is so I won't show work, but:
>a is the sum of all members of the set
>n is how many members there are in the set
>b is the number you subtract each member from
>a = bn/2 (or b = 2a/n)
if you want all members in the inversion to be whole numbers:
>a, b and n must all be whole
>either n or b must be even

Example of a duration set:
>prime set [2 3 2 5]
>(quarter, dotted quarter, quarter, half note tied with eighth)
>a = 12
>n = 4
>b = 2a/n = 2(12)/(4)
>so b = 6
So now we can invert it:
>6-2, 6-3, 6-2, 6-5
>inverted set [4 3 4 1]
>(half, dotted quarter, half, eighth note)

Sorry to shit the thread up with serialism, but I mean I found it cool

... Yeah, this is pretty autistic.

But I think it's good to be autistic with something in life.

That being said, >>/mtg/ - music theory general

Oh, w-what...? It still doesn't exist?
... :'(

what's even the point if it isn't audible
That being said, i think this is the best place to discuss music theory since /comp/ dies a lot anyways.

>assuming you can use google is racist
?

Here it is in action
youtube.com/watch?v=DVclZvxING4 (short and simple)
youtube.com/watch?v=Chlad74Yl3E (more elaborate, with analysis)
Haven't read the article myself but Teoria's usually pretty good
teoria.com/en/tutorials/forms/sonata/

Well in 12-tone it was to enforce atonality with all notes used equally often. Schoenberg didn't actually care about the tone row, just the equal distribution of pitches.

Composers like Babbitt mostly just wanted to see how far they could go with this. And in this case, maybe an equal distribution of rhythms so there's no meter? Only if all numbers were used though.

Yeah, it's really just serial for the sakeof being serial

bumping with a note if u need 2 bump in this thread post a note and we'll build a funny chord

Bb4

Are there any fairly user-friendly programs for making a comp in that doesn't just play some shitty midi-rip piano where your notes are (i.e. Noteflight, ScoreCloud)?

Cbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb39

Sibelius.

Sib 6 has passable piano sounds

Finale and Sibelius have better playback than Noteflight and Musescore and all that shit.

If you want to have your compositions actually sound good, and actually be at a publishable quality, you will need to learn how to use a fully fledged DAW and get libraries.

If you want something that is pretty damn passable and requires no effort, NotePerformer in Sibelius is an option. I've never personally used it, because I can use a DAW and have libraries, but I have composer friends who cannot into technology and I'm pretty impressed by how it sounds

>Posting unhearable frecuencies
get yourself check'd, nigga

>unhearable frecuencies
i emit 200khz noises to echolocate myself when i have to go pee at night, speak for yourself

>discriminating batkins

good going there hitler

the theme is kind of gay (like Luigi's Mansion gay) and why do you repeat it? are you writing a sonatina or a pop song? Do you know what a sonata is? I recommend you throw this out and start with an easier form like a bourree or a minuet

/COMP/ COMPOSITION CHALLENGE # 5

Compose a sonatina. It must meet all the requirerments of a sonatina (following the defintion of a sonatina as a smaller sonata), meaning that at the very least, it has an exposition, and a recapitulation.

No instrumentation limit.

No limits on anything really, it just has to follow the right form. And of course, you can write multiple movements with some other form, like a minuet or something.

familia hit me up with some minor sonatinas. I want to see how composers handle translating the III major melody into minor in the recapitulation

...

REQUESTIN' SONATINA FORM BASICS 101 - STREAM

What's the topic of the Normal Stream Guy's stream this week? He came in and said he was going to do it. I was going to do a chord scale stream but I don't want to stream this weekend if two other people are gonna, I feel like it would be better to put it off till next weekend

youtube.com/watch?v=TeZAXupd2d0

don't know, but i'm starting A RIOT if we don't get a sonatina stream

Thanks, this is nice. But I'm confused, does theme B occur in the recapitulation?

sonatina is just a short, simple sonata. same principle: 2 contrasting themes. The second theme usually in the Dominant key

It's a form stream yeah but not for sonatina form. It covers periods, sentances, and a jazz head.

I can touch on sonata-allegro form a bit, and how to simplify it for a sonatina, but I'd have to write up some notes.

This stream will probably be similar to the melody stream.

are we just supposed to do the first movement?
cuz i dont wanna do more than that

That whole thing is a sonatina. You can honestly make really short, functional sonatinas, every section could be 8 bars

I'm sure that would be fine.

2 minutes of music would be plenty

i see
idk what the form is for the second and third movements but ill start with the first.
should be done later today
goodbye for a few hours thread while i go into composing mode :-)

Critique baby's first ii-V-I

clyp.it/3vyrvrs3

bumping with some weird sonata form, it's not exactly a sonatina but

Also, this guy kind of clumsily labels these sections, labeling the introduction as part of the exposition. He also labels the bit in g minor as the second theme and what I'd call the second theme the third. Which is completely fair, it sounds like a new theme and what is theory if it can't represent how something sounds? but functionally it's still transitional. Dvorak does this in the American, too - start the first theme in one key, modulate to a minor key, keep establishing it as the tonal center but finally cadence in the parallel major for the second theme.

Fuck, accidental quote and forgot link
youtube.com/watch?v=zyF1cLA2Izw

you sound like you know things bls help

fruitless bump because double post

>page two
>double posts bump
???
Is the double posts not bumping a board specific thing or have i deluded myself for 8 hellish years

doubleposts don't bump he is correct

all three of those posts were me, but after I posted it did actually bump, maybe my IP changed or something in between.

Uh, it doesn't appear to recapitulate. It kind of seems like ternary to me.
Just because something is the first movement of a sonata/sonatina doesn't make it in sonata form.

I thought that was real pretty user. Reminiscent of Django Reinhardt.

Also are you playing both parts at the same time or is there another person with one of you doing melody the other strumming chords?

I actually like that idea, I can see and hear it. (the astronaut bit) However I did go through some diminished now that you mention it, but it did not work. The synth arp is best kept simple and non-conflicting. I don't want that to be in the spotlight.

Thanks for the feedback!

Hey, thanks for the feedback.

To answer your question, it's a character retelling his dream, and it is re-enacted. He sees her in the re-enactment and laments over not being able to save her. There is no further detail given as to why and how she drowned.

fuck i was bamboozled